The Bishop of Rochester, the Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali

This was revealed in a story written by Trevor Grundy of ENI (www.eni.ch/) in which he wrote, “The Bishop of Rochester, the Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, in a newspaper interview described Islam as the biggest threat facing the West since communism and called on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to stop being embarrassed to identify with the country's Christian roots.”

He said that the 57-year bishop, who was born in Karachi, was interviewed in the “Kent on Sunday,” the largest regional newspaper in his diocese. He said, “What will this country do if it abandons what has become its bedrock?”

The bishop was born in 1949 into a largely Shi'a Muslim family in Pakistan and his father converted to Christianity. He warned that anarchy could break out in Britain.

A champion of inter-faith dialogue and an adviser to Britain's Prince of Wales about Islam, Bishop Nazir-Ali warned: “We now have a comprehensive ideology confronting the West and if the West does not pay attention to its spiritual roots, it will not be able to resist this ideology.’

He went on: “For some people Islam functions as a comprehensive, political and socio-economic ideology and those are the sort of people we are facing. And how do we face them if we do not have the spiritual and moral resources to do so? I don't think we can.”

Grundy went on to say, “Bishop Nazir-Ali has written extensively on the relationship between Christianity and Islam and has argued for a greater understanding between the two religious communities, especially in his native Pakistan.

“He became Britain's first ethnic Asian Anglican bishop in 1995 when he was appointed as Bishop of Rochester in southern England.”

Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com.